


Fools Rush In

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Historical AU, Rumbelle - Freeform, WWII AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 03:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20324179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: Two codebreakers at Bletchley Park learn that even in the middle of war, there is still the chance to find love again. WWII setting, starring a spinner-type Gold and a middle-aged Belle.Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: Historical AU.





	Fools Rush In

**Author's Note:**

> **CW:** There’s nothing graphic, but it is set in the middle of a war and there are various mentions of period-typical violence.

Belle French was of the decided opinion that they’d get on a lot better with breaking the Germans’ codes if said Germans didn’t keep dropping bombs on them every five minutes. Spending most of the night in an air-raid shelter was not conducive to being bright and breezy and ready for anything next morning, and certainly not ready for looking at the complete gibberish mess of letters and numbers that had dropped onto her desk with the instructions to have it in plain English by lunchtime.

Belle groaned and rested her head on her desk. There were some days when she could really do without this whole stupid war. She would have given anything to go back just a couple of years to a time when everything in the garden was rosy. Well, as rosy as it could be considering the circumstances.

They’d called it the Great War, and everyone had said that it could never happen again, that for the love of God, we could not let it happen again. Now it had happened again, and Belle was wondering just who had let something so ridiculously big and ridiculously dangerous slip through the net. Of course, everything looked different with the goggles of hindsight on. If she had been the one in power, she would probably have done everything that the government had done and come up with exactly the same response to the conflict going on across the channel.

At least this time, she had no-one left to lose. Raising her head off the desk, she opened the locket round her neck and looked at the pictures inside it. She’d known that she would lose Gaston, from the moment that the war broke out. Theirs had been a whirlwind university romance, and she wondered if they would have married at all if it hadn’t been for the war. She’d been twenty and idealistic, and he was Belgian and charming and debonair, all of the things that she’d been dreaming about ever since she’d started to read her romance novels. Naturally he’d gone to fight to defend his homeland, and even though she had cherished every letter from the front that had arrived, she had always known that one of those letters would be the last, and she was not surprised when the telegram from the War Office came, telling her the news.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been as bad if she hadn’t lost her mother so soon after as well. Colette had been a nurse at the front and Belle had not relaxed properly until the day she met her mother off the train having been demobbed. She’d already had the Spanish Flu then, and once it took hold, she had not shaken it. It was a miracle that Belle hadn’t got it as well. Losing Gaston and then her mother in such quick succession had put the brakes on Belle’s life altogether, for far longer than it perhaps should have. She had only just begun to really live again, missing out on the glorious twenties and the relief that came in the wake of the armistice, when war had been declared again and suddenly, all of her new and carefully reclaimed joy went out of her life in the flashes of the Blitz.

“Penny for them.”

A cup of tea was placed gently on her desk and Belle looked up to see Mr Gold leaning against it. Having started in the office on the same day, their working relationship had quickly turned into a firm friendship and a constant battle against their superiors who expected the world on a plate. Not that Belle wouldn’t have given them the world on a plate if it would stop the war quicker, but some things were just completely impossible given their limited time and resources.

“Just waiting for it all to be over.”

“You and me both.” Gold stretched out his leg, grimacing as he moved his ankle. Receiving the injury in the trenches it had been sheer good luck he hadn’t lost his foot altogether, and it had never properly healed even after all these years.

“How’s Bae?” she asked. She had never been sure whether Gold wanted to be reminded of his son’s absence or whether it helped to talk about it; his mood seemed to vary day by day. Today, he smiled.

“He’s doing all right. Still fighting. Having fun with the local French girls. He does actually seem to be serious about the latest one, she’s turned up in his letters three times now.”

“Think you can handle some French in-laws?”

“I’m not worried about me, I’m more worried about Bae. She and all her family are in the resistance.”

Belle felt her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. She knew that Gold and his son had long since established a private code between them, not knowing who might be reading their mail, but all the same, the knowledge that Bae was stepping out with La Résistance was certainly something to be kept under her hat.

“What’s her name?”

“Emma.”

“Well, I wish them all the best.” She paused, wondering the best way to segue into the next stage of conversation. For all their were good friends, there had recently been some rather long pauses in their little chats, awkward silences that neither of them really knew how to fill and that left both of them blushing.

“Thank you for the tea,” she said eventually.

“You’re welcome. You looked like you could use it.”

“You have no idea.” Belle took a sip. It was strong and sweet, just the way she liked it. Gold always knew how to make a good cup of tea.

It would have been the perfect moment had it not been cut short by the entry of their supervisor into the room.

“Oi! Less chatting and more codebreaking.”

Belle rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the information in front of her, and Gold reluctantly limped over to his own desk, getting down to business. There was a war on, after all, and there wasn’t time for idle chit-chat, even if it was essential for keeping them both sane in the midst of all the horrors that they were hearing about and witnessing first-hand in the aftermath of the air raids. Belle had thought some of the tales she’d received from Gaston were bad last time, but now there was the feeling that everything was so much closer to home, and she had seen some truly awful things in London’s streets in the grim light of morning.

She kept stealing glances at Gold throughout the day, and she knew that he was doing the same. Their eyes kept meeting, and embarrassed little half-smiles kept being exchanged. Belle could recognise what was going on for what it was, as much as she really didn’t want to. She remembered the little frisson on excitement from when she had first fallen in love, and she tried to push it down beneath all of the other emotions that the war had ignited within her – fear, anger, hatred. This was no time for love.

Truth be told, if she were to lay her feelings out and examine them properly, Belle was afraid of being in love again. She tried to rationalise it all away. It was natural for her to be scared of falling in love; it was the middle of a war and either one of them might be dead tomorrow morning if a bomb hit in the wrong place. They would be over before they had chance to begin, and it was much better never to get started in the first place than take the risk that the happiness she was sure they could have with each other would be short-lived.

That was certainly the rational way of thinking about it, but deep down, Belle knew that there was another reason why she was so scared to admit her feelings even to herself, let alone to anyone else and God forbid to Gold himself. 

The last time Belle had been in love, it had been during a war. She had married quickly, a shotgun wedding if ever there was one – except she wasn’t pregnant, and her father was long passed-on and had never owned a shotgun. She couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if Gaston had lived and if they’d had the chance for a life together. Would they have been happy together, or would it have been a case of marry in haste, repent at leisure? She’d spent so little time with him, and the end of their marriage had been so tragic that she was apt to view their relationship through rose-tinted glasses and see only the best in it, but she had no idea how successful they would have been as a pair if everything had turned out differently.

Belle absolutely did not want the same thing to happen with Gold. She couldn’t bear the thought of them starting a relationship out of the desperation of the hour only to regret it later. On the face of it, considering that they both might end up dead in a bomb crater tonight, it was the perfect time to admit their feelings and see if something could happen lest it be too late, but what if they didn’t end up dead, and in time they grew to resent the thing that had sprung up between them out of a mutual need for companionship, reassurance, and the need not to be alone at the end? She and Gold were both lonely, she had always known that. She had been alone since her mother died, and whilst Gold had always had his son, now Bae was off fighting and there was no-one left to give Gold any kind of optimism.

No-one except Belle.

She sighed, staring down at the codes and not seeing anything at all except letters and numbers, not that she was even trying to work out what they might mean. She just wished that she knew what to do, what the right course of action might be. The sensible and scared little voice in the back of her mind was telling her to wait. Wait until the war was over, and then she could be sure of her feelings.

The only trouble was, the war might never be over, and even if it did end, they might never live to see that day. Rushing into things was the only way in this age; they did not have the luxury of time to wait and see. There was no use in planning for tomorrow during a war. There might not even be a tomorrow.

Belle glanced over at Gold again, and she gave another little smile when she found him watching her. Things were different this time. She was older and wiser, and whilst she might not have any more relationship experience under her belt, she had experience of the world instead, and experience of other people’s relationships. And after all, some of her friends who’d got married during the first war were still going strong. There was nothing to say that she and Gaston wouldn’t have done so. The fear was a nebulous one with nothing concrete in it, and Belle was already so scared of everything that was going on in the world at the moment that it seemed downright silly to be scared of starting something that could give both her and Gold so much joy.

With that, her mind was made up. There were so many benefits that they could have together, not least of all the wonderful friendship that they’d cultivated at work could continue into their personal lives. They were both so scared, and they could make each other braver.

By the time their lunch break came, Belle was resolved. Before she could second guess herself, she marched over to Gold’s desk as he was taking out his sandwiches.

“Would you like to come over for dinner?” she asked.

Gold looked up at her with a startled look on his face, as if she’d just declared her intention to start tap dancing around the office with a tea cosy on her head.

“I mean, it wouldn’t be much,” Belle continued, beginning to ramble in the face of his uncertainty. “You know, rationing being what it is and everything, but I’m a pretty decent cook and I haven’t poisoned myself yet. Or anyone else for that matter. I just thought… maybe we could keep smiling at each other in private, instead of across the office. Oh God, I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant…”

She tailed off as Gold reached over and touched the back of her hand.

“I would like that very much, Belle,” he said softly.

“You would?”

“Yes, I would. I’m very glad to be asked. I would never have had the courage to make an invitation myself.”

Belle smiled, and Gold smiled back, and she felt the warmth in his gaze run through her veins. Perhaps it was sudden, but they had been friends for so long that perhaps it was more just a natural progression. Whatever it was, Belle was determined that she was not going to let the bleak times that they were living in stop her from achieving what happiness she could find.


End file.
